12-813.Judgment by confession.

Section 12-813 protects debtors against a specific risk: a confession judgment entered without any service of process on them. Such a judgment cannot support a wage deduction order unless it is first confirmed -- after service of process, through a trial de novo, treated as though the confession of judgment had never happened. That requirement gives the debtor an actual opportunity to contest the underlying debt before wages can be reached over it.

The section then carves out two situations where ordinary service on the employee proves impractical. First, if the officer's return on the first summons shows the employee cannot be found, alias summonses may later be served by leaving a copy with the employee's employer, or at the employer's usual place of business with a superintendent, manager, cashier, general agent, or clerk -- but only once the creditor files an affidavit identifying the employer and stating the employee is actively employed at the time the alias is sought. Second, if a notice of defense has been filed to a wage assignment under Section 4.1 of the Illinois wage-assignment act, the debtor may instead be served by registered or certified mail within 6 months after that defense was filed, mailed to the address shown on the notice of defense -- and that mailing itself constitutes service in the action to confirm the confession judgment.